Sponateous trips

Kara texted me Friday and said that we should leave for Pioche, and so Sunday night we did. Five hours of driving with your best friend isn't even bad. It's actually really fun. Before this, I always imagined road trips with your friends as laughing and singing to music for long periods of time, which we did, but we also listened to church music, read some of the scriptures, talked about deep stuff, and sat in silence, and it wasn't even weird. Perks of being best friends, I guess.

We got there Sunday night and pretty much just played cards with her grandparents, which was totally fun by the way.

The next morning we got up a little early so we could go over to Cathedral Gorge to hike around a bit. Holy cow, it was just gorgeous. We spent two hours exploring every nook and cranny we could find and climbing every ledge we could get our hands on (that was safe, of course). The parking lot is at the top of the canyon and there are stairs leading down into the depths of the rock. We walked down, but decided to climb our way out of the canyon instead of taking the stairs. There was a cave/tunnel that we followed for a while, which lead us to some narrower rock formations, but we still managed to climb out. What an adventure. And what a beauty.

We (I mean Kara) cleaned up so we could take some senior photos! That was the real reason Kara wanted to come down to Pioche; so she could have some pictures taken in her favorite place. Earlier that day, Kara was showing me the dainty little towns around Pioche, and we passed by a gorgeous patch of sunflowers literally on the side of the freeway. When we were taking pictures, we decided to go back and take some there, and I'm so glad we did. SO stunning. Wow. There are no words. (PS if you want to see more photos of Kara from this shoot, check this out)

We played cards again that night and headed back home the next morning. While we were there I felt like one of the grandkids just coming to visit grandma and grandpa in Pioche! Oh how I love the small town charm, as cliche as it sounds.

And oh how I love how we can decide to drive five hours away to take pictures and stay for three days. There's nothing better than that.